


Are you getting better (at pretending you're okay?)

by stardustachilles



Series: Acosmist (one who believes nothing exists) [15]
Category: Dysprosium
Genre: Alex is 26, Alex makes it better, F/F, Hurt/Comfort, Mostly Fluff, Sara is 19, Sara's had a bad day, but juts a little bit, elements of BDSM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 10:38:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,287
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10332794
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardustachilles/pseuds/stardustachilles
Summary: Sara gets into a fight with her parents and needs help calming down.





	

Sara was close to tears by the time she got to Alex’s house. She didn’t often fight with her parents, but when she did, it was usually pretty explosive. This fight hadn’t even been over anything major — just the classes she was taking at university, and what classes her parents thought she should be taking. Sara was an art major, so the majority of her classes were art classes. Her parents though she should go into a more respectable field, so they were pushing for more math and science classes. Sara hated math and science.

Alex’s front door was open, as usual, leaving the entryway nice and breezy. Sara untucked her feet from her shoes and nudged them into the corner, and hung her jacket on one of the hooks on the wall. She clutched the strap of her emergency overnight back tightly, pushing through the swinging doors into the living room.

The house was quiet, which was unique. Sara knew Alex should be here, unless she had gone on an unexpected run to the store for something. There was no note in any of the usual places, so Sara assumed there hadn’t been an emergency. James clearly wasn’t here, because he left a mess wherever he went, and the house was as clean as Alex usually tried to keep it.

Sara would have called out, but she really wasn’t in the mood for any more yelling today. Her throat kind of hurt, and her eyes were tired from the bus ride. The stale air always made her eyes tired. She walked down the hallway so she could peek in the kitchen, but Alex wasn’t in there. She wasn’t in the dining room, either. The thought that Alex could be in the basement passed through Sara’s mind, but Alex hated the basement, and generally avoided it. That only left upstairs.

The door to the guest room (read: James’s room) was closed, as was Alex’s office door. Alex usually closed the door when she was working in there, so Sara peeked her head in, but there was no Alex. The desk was a mess, as usual, and one of the paintings Sara had finished and given to Alex was sitting atop a stack of papers. Sara smiled.

She went back into the hallway. The bathroom door was open, and it was dark inside. That only left Alex’s own room, unless Alex had been abducted through her stupidly-open front door. Sara wouldn’t have been surprised, except for the fact that Alex was built like a brick house, and she knew how to defend herself.

Sara readjusted the backpack strap on her shoulder and tapped lightly on Alex’s door. She didn’t get an answer, so she pushed it open slightly, and peeked her head in. The room smelled like fresh air, and Sara knew the windows were opened. She peeked in a little further and saw Alex sitting in one of the chairs by the floor-to-ceiling windows, reading a thick book.

Sara was nearly running on fumes at this point, so she pushed through the door and closed it behind her. Alex looked up briefly, and smiled. Sara dropped her bag by the end of the bed. Alex shifted, uncrossing her legs and sitting up from leaning against the arm of the chair, spreading her legs and slouching; a clear invitation for Sara to sit between them.

Sara wanted to, she wanted to so badly, but she’d done enough bowing to other people’s wills today, so she took the other chair beside Alex, instead.

Alex shot her a quizzical look, holding her finger in the crack of her book the way she did when she expected to be closing it soon. She sat up a little bit, turning toward Sara. “What, not even a hello kiss?” she asked, leaning her forearms on the arm of the chair, holding the extremely heavy-looking book with her fingertips.

Sara shrugged, because the one thing Alex hated was a silent response. Alex’s brow furrowed momentarily, but it passed in the blink of an eye. “Are you staying over? I thought you had that activity fair thing at your uni to go to with your parents tomorrow morning?”

Sara shrugged again, pulling her feet up onto the chair in front of her and wrapping her arms around them. “We fought,” she said. “I left.”

The corners of Alex’s mouth twitched downward, and she upended her book over the arm of her chair and slid to her knees on the carpet, shuffling so she was in front of Sara. Sara could tell it was deliberate, but she really didn’t want to acknowledge the power Alex still held over her, even from that position.

“You want to talk about it?” Alex asked, resting her hands on the arms of Sara’s chair. Intellectually, Sara knew it was probably just for balance, but another part of her knew that Alex had incredible balance, and wouldn’t need to hold onto the arms of Sara’s chair to stay upright. Sara felt boxed in.

Sara climbed over the arm over the chair, landing her socked feet on the carpet. She stood and put her head in her hands, pressing the heels of her hands into her eyes and drawing her fingers back through her hair. (A small part of her registered how much better that would have felt if it had been Alex doing it.)

Alex turned on the balls of her feet, a frown on her face. She rested her arms on her thighs, perfectly balanced. “Sara?” she asked. Sara backed up, accidentally hitting her calf on the ottoman that was stupidly (or strategically) placed in the center of the room. She fell onto it on her butt, making a little ‘oof’ sound at the impact.

“Stop moving around so much,” Alex said. “You’re clumsy enough when you’re in your right state of mind. I don’t want you hurting yourself.” It was probably meant to be kind and caring, but Sara could only hear it as condescending and patronizing.

“Sorry I’m not perfect,” Sara muttered angrily. “If you want me to stop moving, tie me down. I dare you.”

It was never a good idea to bet against Alex — she always won. But like Alex said, Sara wasn’t in her right state of mind. Alex’s brow was still furrowed, but this time more in thought and deliberation than confusion. “Okay,” Alex muttered under her breath. She stood up. “If you insist.”

Sara watched Alex walk to the closet and pull the door open, not having to rummage long before she found the soft cuffs that attached to the headboard. Sara made a noise of protest, but it wasn’t genuine. Alex slung the cuffs over her shoulder and Sara stood, backing up, unintentionally toward the bed.

Alex’s hands were out in the manner of calming a frightened animal, and the belligerent part of Sara took offense to that. But the belligerent part of Sara was the one not letting Sara acquiesce to what she wanted, so she ignored it. She wanted Alex to tie her down, she just didn’t know how to communicate her consent when her body wouldn’t let her. She was watching herself move away from Alex when her mind was screaming at her to say something, to say  _ yes _ , to stop moving backward.

Alex must have been able to see that because she kept walking toward Sara until the backs of Sara’s knees hit the edge of the bed and she fell. Alex was over her instantly, getting her wrists in a tight grip above her head. She kissed Sara, a belated hello kiss, and Sara kissed back, because her body was letting her do that, at least. Alex took it as the consent it was and shrugged the cuffs off her shoulder and down her arm until they fell on their joined hands.

Alex climbed on the bed and swung a leg over Sara’s hips and dedicated a good amount of weight into keeping Sara pressed to the mattress. Sara’s legs kicked out unintentionally, but Alex ignored them. She cuffed Sara quickly, attaching the other end to the hooks on the bedposts. Immediately, Sara’s mind went calm, but that didn’t mean her body did. Alex used the last two cuffs to hold Sara’s ankles to the bedposts at the foot of the bed, and Sara was well and effectively tied down.

Sara convinced her lungs to let out a breath and scrunched up her nose to keep herself from crying. She didn’t want to cry when she was so exposed like this, lying open and wanting, shirt accidentally riding halfway up her stomach. Her belt kept her pants up, but not by much.

Alex had an inscrutable look in her eyes, and she moved quickly when she got up from the bed and went to her dresser. Sara watched her, saw her pull open the door that housed Sara’s collar. A pleasant shiver went down Sara’s spine at the thought, and Sara was glad her body had finally gotten back on the same wavelength as her brain.

“I swear to god, if you bite me,” Alex said, walking back over to the bed with an end of the velvet collar clutched in each hand. Sara obediently kept her mouth closed when Alex reached near her throat, snapping the velvet around her neck. A sense of calm immediately fell over her, and she pressed her spine into the bed. Crying felt more distant than it had a second ago. She stared up at Alex, eyes pleading, but for what, she didn’t know.

“Babe,” Alex said, voice lilting downward. “Are you done fighting me?”

If it had been anyone else, anyone else at all, the answer would have been no. She didn’t like being held down. She didn’t like not being able to do what she wanted. She didn’t like being told what to do. She didn’t like it when people got in her way. She liked fighting. Sara generally had a shy personality, but that didn’t mean she was submissive.

But with Alex, it was different. She’d never trusted anyone so completely so quickly. She wanted to submit for Alex, to follow Alex’s orders. She liked it when Alex held her down. She liked it when Alex told her what to do, or dictated Sara’s actions. Sara had felt that few times before with anyone else. She hadn’t known what to think of it, at first. It had scared her, almost, but she had kept that confined to her late-night talks with Hayden.

She still felt that way sometimes, when she was overcome with how much better Alex was than her. Sara was in her first year of college, and Alex already had a PhD in a field Sara barely understood, and was talking about getting another. Sara’s feelings of inadequacy manifested themselves sometimes, like at that party Alex’s old friends had had a couple weeks ago. But Sara knew how to manage them, and when she didn’t, Alex was there to help.

Sara nodded to Alex’s question, letting her eyes fall shut when Alex climbed back atop her on the bed. She noticed, this time, that Alex was barely putting any of her weight on her. Sara appreciated that. Alex was almost entirely muscle, and muscle was heavy. Sara was tiny.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Alex asked again, and this time Sara actually considered answering. In the end, she decided not to, because she’d had enough stress for the day. She shook her head again, and Alex nodded acceptingly. “That’s okay,” she said. “You don’t have to right now. But I want you to tell me what this was about, sometime.” It wasn’t an order, but a suggestion, and Sara appreciated that.

Speaking, for the first time in a while, Sara asked, “Can you uncuff me? I want you to hold me.”

Alex smiled at her and kissed her nose. Sara tried to tilt her head back so their lips met, but one of Alex’s hands came up to grab her jaw and hold her head in place.

“You’ll listen to me?” Alex asked. She always asked, when Sara needed it.

“Yes,” Sara promised. Alex kissed her nose again and released her chin, and pulled back so she could unbuckle the cuffs at Sara’s ankles. Those cuffs were tossed to the floor, and Sara shuffled up until she was in some semblance of a sitting position. Alex went to uncuff her hand on the outside bedpost, but Sara made a noise in the back of her throat and Alex froze.

“No?” she asked, looking back at Sara.

“I don’t want to be uncuffed,” Sara said, “but I don’t want to be spread out like this.”

Alex nodded in understanding and compromised, unclipping the end of the cuff from that bedpost and clipping it to the other one, where her left hand was still cuffed. Sara nodded when Alex looked at her, and Alex slid in behind Sara, pulling her into her lap. She lengthened the nylon straps on the cuffs, so Alex could sit with her back against the wall and Sara could still sit comfortably in her lap.

“You good?” Alex asked after a couple of minutes, and Sara nodded pleasantly from her place nuzzled against Alex’s collarbone. Alex smiled at her and tightened her arms around Sara’s body. “We’re going to talk about this,” Alex said, “when you’re ready.”

Sara nodded again. She knew she would have to talk about it sometime with someone, and Alex was here, now, asking to talk about it. There was still a chance that Sara would cry, but if she did, they could and would handle it.


End file.
